Disaster Strikes—Environmental Health Responds: “Stories from the Field”

Speaker:           Brian R. Golob, MS, REHS, CHMM

                        Hennepin County Human Services and Public Health Department

This session focuses on training material that addresses environmental health and emergency preparedness.  The material provides practical information on how environmental health professionals can prepare for, respond to, and recover from an emergency or disaster.

Experience is a powerful tool, especially in the realm of disasters and emergencies.  To develop this material, environmental health professionals from around the country were interviewed to learn how they dealt with actual disasters and emergencies.  The session relates their real-world stories and shares their valuable tips, techniques, and lessons learned.  The information will help guide you through the preparation, response and recovery stages of a disaster/emergency.

The training material focuses on eight Environmental Health Core Competencies, as defined by the National Center for Environmental Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American Public Health Association.  The competencies will provide the framework environmental health professionals need to be effective in all kinds of disasters and emergencies.  Each competency is brought to life through the stories of environmental health professionals.